Author: maireaddoyle

>Yeah Maan

~ maireaddoyle ~ 2 Comments

>There is only one Caribbean restaurant in Melbourne (well there is a cafe called Babble On Babylon but it is only open in the daytime). It happens to be that our local bus takes us straight there, through the city centre and out the other side, right to the nearest corner. Some friends had warned us that the food was good but the portions were tiny, but we needed to see for ourselves.

And so it was that we took five mates along there one Saturday night to see if it was anything worth talking about.


Yeah Maan is a tiny terraced building, converted from a house, with enough seating for about forty downstairs and another small dining room upstairs. Instead of the expected reggae blasting out, we were delighted to hear some classic soca tunes. We had a reservation but they didn’t seem to know anything about that. We were shown to the upstairs room, and although we had explained that it was a reservation for seven people, we were asked to sit at a smaller table until we insisted we needed more room.

Once everybody had arrived we were pretty desperate for a drink – or at least some glasses for our BYO wine. In the end Orlando obliged by going downstairs himself. We thought that might shake up the waitresses, but we waited quite a long time for anybody to come and see if we were OK. It was the girl’s first night so she didn’t know much, but she was sweet.

Apart from myself and Orlando, we had three people who had only eaten Caribbean food in our house (Mena, Eileen and Kelvin), and two people who had no idea what they were in for (Australian Ida and Italian Viviana). The Trinidadian doubles served up were generous and talked about for days; Mena’s Stamp ‘n’ Go was a huge portion and absolutely divine. Orlando and I both had the Pick Up Salt Fish, which was saltfish mixed with onions, tomato and peppers served on a dumpling. It reminded both of us how much we love saltfish, and I promised to go get some and start cooking it again. Pity we can’t get ackee anywhere though…

The chilly janga roti (chilli prawns) were not too hot and spicy, which was probably just as well for the virgins. You could probably ask for them to be made a bit hotter. Kelvin chose the aloo pies, a huge portion of spicy potato balls which were tasty enough but nothing exciting.

The mains were even better. Eileen was served an enormous portion of jerk chicken and cassava fries, which she struggled manfully to consume, but ended up pleading with everybody to finish for her. She said it was lovely, but not as nice as Orlando’s (well, you can’t get Walkerswood here either).

The curried goat was really lovely, but I forgot to ask for mine to be made hot, so although it was tasty there was no kick to it. Orlando had asked for his hot, but it wasn’t much better than mine. The rice and peas were made with small kidney beans (guess what? No gunga peas in Aus…) but it worked fine. Mena scored again with the ginger tamarind chicken which was beautifully seasoned, a good strong kick. The calypso chicken looked good, but even for the virgins it seemed very mildly-flavoured.

The service didn’t get any better. We helped ourselves to more napkins, water and fresh glasses from behind our personal minibar in the corner, and raided the other tables for new candles for the table. Even when we wanted the bill, it warranted another trip downstairs. Maybe if we had been seated down with everybody else it might have been better.

Nonetheless, we were not in any hurry and the relaxed vibe certainly didn’t ruin the evening. We put the world to rights without fear of annoying other diners with our noise, we finished a few bottles of wine and enjoyed some fine West Indian food. The rumours of small portions were well and truly scotched, and we will definitely come back again for more.

>Giant Steps/Innocent Bystander Winery

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> A summer’s evening in Healesville brought me to the new Giant Steps/Innocent Bystander pizzeria-bistro-artisan bakery on the outskirts of town. It is a modern new complex where you can tour the winemaking facility, try any of their wines, have lunch on the terrace or dinner in the airy restaurant.

I sat at the bar and tried a glass of their chilled rose. The wines are stored in temperature-controlled fridges and the beer casks are in full sight behind glass, rather than hidden in the cellar.

The staff were incredibly friendly and helpful, and the restaurant was fully booked for their regular Curry Night that evening.

I am looking forward to coming back to try their Harry’s Monster, a huge cabernet/shiraz/merlot/ petit verdot blend retailing at $49 a bottle.

>China Bar

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>It was Chinese New Year and an acquaintance’s thirtieth birthday: what better opportunity to try another cheap and cheerful Chinatown eatery. China Bar came recommended by a few people. There are three branches, two in the city and one in Box Hill. We met up with the others at the Russell Street branch, right beside the entertainment stage where Chinese dancers, gymnasts, singers and performers entertained the hundreds of Melburnians who had braved the forty-degree heat to celebrate New Year in style.

China Bar is pretty small. It probably holds about fifty diners when full. Full roasted chickens and ducks are displayed proudly in the window, and above the counter a selection of dishes are displayed in full photographic glory.

We sat down the back with six others at the formica table, and helped ourselves to extra glasses for our BYO wine. Hunger, and the sheer beewilderment of the number of dishes on offer, made choosing an impossibility. Others picked my first choices – Mongolian beef, belly pork, choice of two roasts – and I was reluctant to order the same dish twice for the table. For the first time in my life, I sent the waitress away with no order from me after everybody else had chosen. Finally, somebody suggested that I limit my choice to the Specialities section, and I finally opted for satay beef.

We shared rice, noodles and stir-fried vegetables along with our own personally-chosen dishes. Everything was enormous and delicious.

We thought nothing could have detracted from our evening, until one creepy-crawly was detected on the wall near our table. In the course of the evening four baby cockroaches were seen emerging from the air-conditioning vent on the opposite wall, and making their way over to our table. They were dispatched with the aid of roll-up newspapers, but not before one almost made it into my hair, and one onto the table itself.

Now, a week later, the memory of the delicious food is fading as quickly as the memory of the cockroaches is growing. Despite the amazing food, I’m not sure if I will eat there again.

Arintjis

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>French chef Jacques Reymond has lived and worked in Melbourne for almost 25 years. His eponymous restaurant in Windsor is one of the top restaurants in the city. A few years ago he opened a new, more casual restaurant in the city’s Federation Square, Arintji.

We ate there on a weeknight, and the place was full of after-work functions, birthday dinners, couples and small groups of friends. I arrived first and ordered a glass of Jacques Reymond Selection shiraz, from the Victorian Pyrenees.

The decor is modern and low-key, and you can see clearly into the open-plan kitchen. The menu is described as pan-national or modern Australian in the reviews I have read, but there is a distinct Asian slant to most dishes. Orlando started with croquettes of chorizo, spanish hard cheese and potato aioli and my starter was a warm salad of green beans, olives and feta (alright, these dishes are more Mediterranean but keep reading). Both dishes were very small but perfectly balanced in terms of taste and texture. So far, so good.

The main courses were a mixture of delight and disappointment. My stir fry of pork, shiitake mushrooms, kim chi, water chestnuts and rice drops was divine: a generous bowlful of dark and delicious goodness. Orlando’s roast duck noodle salad with ginger, sesame and soy was so small he called the waiter back to enquire whether he had been given a starter portion by mistake. The waiter explained to Orlando that the dish he had ordered as a main was actually from the starters list, and that the noodle salad was the correct size. It was gone in a few delicious mouthfuls – and I had to give him some of my stir fry to keep him from wasting away.
Later we checked the menu online and Orlando’s tiny dish was actually listed in the “Mains” section. Admittedly it was one of the cheaper dishes, but at $15 it was neither value for money nor a genuine attempt to satisfy a normal human’s hunger pangs.
Lee’s scotch fillet was perfectly cooked and amply proportioned, as was Daniel’s pork cutlet with piquillo pepper and grape couscous.

The evening ended with three of us satisfied by both the quality and quantity of what we had been served, and one slightly hungry individual who was left wanting more.

on-tray

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>A hand-written notice in the window of our local Indian restaurant (I won’t embarrass them by naming it) proudly advertised a new takeaway offer:

“BUY THREE MAINS, GET ON-TRAY FREE!”

I wasn’t sure if I was reading it incorrectly, in that they would come to your house and serve it to you on a tray, or whether they were in fact offering entrees free (which is what starters are called here).

I also surmised whether they were doing what my friend Denis in Goa did: when choosing a name for his new beach shack, he came up with Stringfellos, spelt incorrectly with no “w” at the end. His rationale was that arrogant British tourists would delight in coming up to him and pointing out his mistake, at which point he would thank them and invite them to sit down for a drink/lunch/whatever. His gift of the gab would take over at this point, and they would be persuaded to stay at his shack for the rest of their holiday and spend all their beach money there.

You would be amazed at the number of people this worked on…

Anyhoo, the day I stopped my car to take a photo of the aforementioned offending notice, they had discreetly changed the word to “entree”.

Now you will never believe me.